


these, our bodies, possessed by light (tell me we’ll never get used to it)

by voxofthevoid



Series: the hero's shoulders [5]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Happy Ending, M/M, Mild Blood, Natasha Romanov Lives, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Praise Kink, Reunions, Rough Sex, Tender Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26109613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxofthevoid/pseuds/voxofthevoid
Summary: Steve’s never been a coward. He returns the space stone first.He doesn’t strangle Zola and leave him to rot, though he wants to. And it would be easy to just—tap his GPS and leave, but he’s helpless not to retrace his path from the last time. It’s harder because there are people looking for a man with Steve’s build and coloring, but the first thing he did when he materialized in this reality was tug on a face mesh, grimacing at the faint prickle of it settling over his features, changing and masking them.Peggy’s not in her office this time. Likely for the best.The old Steve, thin as a reed and with a scowl as big as his face, stands in a picture frame next to the one of Peggy’s family. Steve sets the compass in front of the man he used to be.Inside, there’s a folded paper with a set of coordinates.Steve drags in a breath that burns all the way down. He’s gone before he can change his mind.-A brave new world.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: the hero's shoulders [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719319
Comments: 118
Kudos: 637





	these, our bodies, possessed by light (tell me we’ll never get used to it)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [these, our bodies, possessed by light (tell me we’ll never get used to it)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29585985) by [WTF Bucky Bottom 2021 (WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Bucky_Bottom_2021/pseuds/WTF%20Bucky%20Bottom%202021)



> Aaaand here it is, the not-quite ending. But the next part is really just a porny epilogue; the main story is over. Speaking of plot, I wouldn’t have dived even this deep if Endgame didn’t make that big a mess. I’ve fixed what I can. Enjoy?
> 
> As an aside—there won’t be an update next week. I’ve been feeling kinda off (in general, nothing fandom related) and low on energy lately. I’ll be back by Sep 09 and as always, you can find me on [tumblr](https://voxofthevoid.tumblr.com/).
> 
> The beautiful art is all ko’s—more of her stuff on [tumblr!](https://kocuria.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Fic title from "Scheherazade" by Richard Siken .

* * *

* * *

When it’s all over, the world is an expanse of red and grey, and Tony is a broken body in Pepper’s arms.

They kneel for god knows how long. Strange is the one to stand first, portal spinning to life beside Pepper. She gathers Tony closer, carrying him like a child, and steps through. Rhodey and Parker follow.

The rest of them start to stand. More portals flare open. Steve can hear T’Challa speak, but it’s just noise to him, blank and meaningless. He should get up, but he can’t seem to move his legs.

“Steve.”

Sam’s worried voice penetrates. Steve doesn’t look up at him.

Another body kneels beside him. Cool metal wraps around his hand, gently prying the broken shield from his grip. A warm hand cups his face, a familiar touch that has haunted Steve’s dreams for five years.

Bucky guides Steve to look at him.

“Steve,” he says, and his face is streaked with blood and dust and his hair is a tangled tuft, but he’s smiling and he’s real, and Steve digs his nails into his palm because if this is a dream, he wants to wake up before it gets any kinder. There’s only so much he can survive.

Blood beads under his nails, but Bucky’s smile doesn’t waver.

“You’re real,” Steve rasps, and it’s not a question, but it is.

Bucky makes a small, pained noise.

“I’m real,” he says, voice trembling. “You brought me back, Steve.”

-

There are funerals to plan, and a shell-shocked world is demanding answers. The Decimation was devastating, but the Resurrection, as they seem to be calling it, is no less so. Already, the body count is piling up. Bruce tried his best, but there’s only so much that a single man’s will can manipulate. It would have been easier to reverse the Snap in time, but well, Morgan is not the only new life created in those five years. They were never going to win.

Steve can’t bring himself to regret it.

By the time he trudges out their makeshift conference room, he’s tired to the bone. He wants to lean on Natasha, and he finds himself searching the space next to him for dull red hair before he remembers.

Okoye assigned him a room within the palace. She exudes calm authority in the face of this mess, same as she did five years ago, and Steve’s not the only one who’s stupidly grateful for it. Bruce gives him a tired smile. He’s half-carrying Thor. Steve nods back and escapes before he has to meet anyone else’s eyes.

Steve opens the door and freezes. Bucky stares at him from the bed, just as still.

For a long moment that lasts an eternity, neither of them moves.

Then, Bucky staggers to his feet, and Steve snaps. He’s across the room in a flash, barreling into Bucky, sending their bodies falling to the bed in a tangle of flailing limbs. But after the initial shock, Bucky relaxes, both arms wrapping around Steve. His grip is firm for a second before it tightens painfully, crushing Steve to him.

Steve’s ribs twinge in discomfort. It’s the most alive he’s felt since Bucky turned into dust at his fingertips.

It takes him a long time to realize that Bucky is talking and longer still for the sounds to coalesce into anything meaningful. It’s his name, a litany of _Steve, Steve, Steve_ , Bucky’s voice curling softly around each one like a prayer.

Steve pulls back and has a flash of wide blue eyes before he kisses Bucky hard enough to make their mouths bleed.

Bucky goes very still, and then he kisses back with a harsh, choking sound, fingernails digging into Steve’s uniform like he wants to tear through its thick layers and find the soft skin underneath. Steve would let Bucky flay him open, but stripping means detaching from their brutal embrace and frantic kisses, and that’s a thought worse than death.

Bucky, though, is soft and half-naked, warm and slightly damp the way he is after a bath. And it’s not like Steve forgot, _couldn’t_ even if he wanted to, but no matter how crystal-sharp his memory, the reality is a fist around his heart. He never moved on, never let himself, but that didn’t mean he didn’t stop hoping.

“Please,” he gasps, pressing the word to his clenched jaw, and he doesn’t even know what he’s begging for.

“I’m here,” Bucky says, running trembling fingers through Steve’s hair. “I’m here, I’m real, ain’t going anywhere. Promise.”

That’s not a promise Bucky can make; they both learned that the hard way, but Steve clings to the words with breathless desperation. Bucky’s skin tastes like soap and salt, and it burns hot with blood when Steve’s teeth sink in deep.

Bucky grunts and arches his throat, giving in with a whimper. His fingers tighten in Steve’s hair, pressing his face more firmly into his throat, and his strong legs wrap around Steve’s hips.

Steve’s getting him all dirty again, rubbing up against Bucky with blood and dirt all over him, but Bucky’s clinging to him with equal desperation, and a part of Steve likes seeing the mess he’s making. Means its real.

“I dreamed of you,” he tells Bucky, hiding in his neck because he’s half-terrified of seeing his reflection in Bucky’s eyes. The sight he must make. “Every night.”

Bucky makes a quiet, gutted noise.

“This isn’t a dream,” he says, voice shaky but true. “We’re real.”

He pulls Steve up by the hair and licks his own blood off Steve’s lips, tongue sliding deep as if its heat will convince Steve of reality. It helps, but it’s not enough. Steve wants more, wants to crawl inside Bucky, wants to slit himself from head to toe and tuck Bucky safely inside. He tries, hands roving hot and hard over every inch of Bucky he can reach, pressing fresh bruises into his soft, yielding skin.

His cock’s hard, throbbing to the beat of his heart, and he can feel Bucky under him, squirming for the right kind of pressure. He’s the one who takes Steve’s hand by the wrist and sucks two fingers into his mouth. His eyes flutters while his tongue curls wetly around the blood and dirt caked along Steve’s fingers, and Steve’s helpless to do anything but watch, dizzy with it.

Bucky lets the fingers slip out of his mouth and, with a heaving breath that makes his belly go taut, pushes Steve off him. The separation lances through Steve’s chest, but Bucky’s only wriggling free of his—Steve looks down, finds Bucky is wearing shorts, loose black ones that slide off his legs to bare the whole of him. Bucky doesn’t wait for Steve to strip, just pulls him back on top and sucks his fingers in again, getting them wet with intent.

“Come on,” he says, licking a smudge of red off his lip. His grin is mad at the edges. “This is as real as the two of us get.”

Bucky spreads his legs. Steve shoves two fingers into him and drinks the scream from his lips.

When he fantasized, in that first year or so when hope wasn’t a forgotten dream, Steve used to imagine all the way he’d touch Bucky if he ever got his hands on him again; he thought he’d be gentle and reverent, treasuring, worshipping, but the last wisps of those daydreams collapse under the breathtaking violence of Bucky screaming under him.

Bucky grins through the shuddering cries he can’t hold in, a wide, toothy grin that sinks its hooks into Steve’s gut and yanks him down. Bucky laughs into the kiss, the sound strained but sincere, and Steve says—something. Bucky’s name, or maybe a prayer. There’s not much difference, and this is as close to worship as he’s capable of.

“More,” Bucky says. “I can take it.”

He’s tight around Steve’s fingers, the slick not quite enough, and when he spits on his hand and shoves back in with a third finger, Bucky’s whole body arches into a sharp, shuddering curve.

He’s beautiful. The fight hasn’t left him unscathed. There are little cuts over his face and bruises all along his body, but he pulls Steve atop him and bears down on his fingers, radiant as he writhes from the pain.

Steve kisses him, mouths along his heated skin, and pins Bucky to the bed with his body, torsos flush together even as he starts to press inside, slow and steady. Bucky’s whole body goes taut before relaxing, a deliberate release of tension. He clings to Steve and keeps his legs spread, breathing through clenched teeth. Steve drags his nose up the curve of Bucky’s throat, inhaling deep. The scent of soap’s buried under the sweat now, and it’s pure _Bucky_ that fills Steve’s lungs and runs through his blood; god, he never could forget.

He opens his mouth over Bucky’s pounding pulse and pushes _in_ , and this time, they both cry out.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps, hands shaped like claws, still finding no purchase in Steve’s padded shoulders. He wants to rip it all off, but it was pretty much all he could do to draw his dick out of the trappings down below, but he can’t pull away from Bucky long enough, it’s unthinkable.

“Ssh,” Steve mumbles, kissing sloppily up Bucky’s neck, finding his mouth and biting the jutting lower lip. “Easy, Buck. I got you.”

Bucky laughs, loud and sharp before it trembles, and Steve doesn’t know whether it’s the sex or the everything else that turns it into a sob any more than he knows whether the razor-edged knot in his chest is joy or grief.

He shifts, rutting with gentle thrusts of his hips, and Bucky’s sobs turn into a soft keening that Steve drinks in, his own breath hitching.

They move without words, kissing between gasps and ragged moans. Bucky’s taste pierces deep into Steve’s heart and the tight clutch of his body turns Steve’s blood to fire, and that’s another miracle right there, this one just their own.

Steve comes first, spilling deep inside Bucky, and all it takes is his fingers wrapping around Bucky and stroking once, twice, before he spills between them too.

He doesn’t pull out, doesn’t roll off Bucky’s panting form. He can’t, and the way Bucky clings to him says he can’t bear it either.

It’s a long time later that someone speaks.

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky’s voice, pitched low as if not to startle, jolts Steve out of the mindless daze he fell into.

It takes a few tries before he can speak. Even then, the sounds scrape his throat raw, spilling from his lips like gravel.

“Why are you apologizing?”

Bucky huffs a breath that’s half a laugh but lacks anything resembling humor. Steve’s got his ear pressed to Bucky’s heart. It’s calmer now but not quite at its normal pace. It’s real. He’s real.

“Left you again,” Bucky says. “Said I wouldn’t.”

Bucky had run towards him. Steve froze, only for a second, but the hesitance cost him. His fingers only ever touched ash.

“Not your fault,” Steve chokes out. He doesn’t recognize his voice. “Thanos.”

“Sweetheart,” Bucky breathes, horror and a terrible sadness turning his voice as fragile as glass. “I’m so sorry you were alone.”

He wasn’t—he wasn’t alone, he had Natasha, Rhodey and he talked once every other week, even Carol sometimes—

The time he lived with Bucky was a fraction of all the times he’s been alone, but—

He missed him like a limb, woke at nights choking on ash and reaching for a hand that wasn’t there.

Steve doesn’t realize he’s sobbing until Bucky’s skin is wet with tears, and then, there are hands running through his hair and Bucky is murmuring gentle, soothing nonsense while Steve clings to him like a child.

-

Bucky has to help Steve clean up. It’s like the tears use up the last of frantic, desperate energy that’s been carrying him along ever since Scott appeared in the Avengers Compound like a dream too good to be true.

Bucky takes over, gently wrangling Steve to the edge of the bed so he can strip him, tugging and swearing under his breath as blood-and-dirt caked armor clings to skin. They mess up the floor and the sheets with bodily fluids and other things, but Steve can breathe a little easier once he’s out of his stars and stripes.

“You don’t have to—” he starts when Bucky follows him into the bathroom, but a single, quelling glare silences him. Bucky’s expression softens the next second, and he reaches up to push some of Steve’s sweaty hair out of his eyes.

“Let me take care of you for once.”

 _You’re the one who died_ , Steve almost says, but the look on Bucky’s face and the tightness in his own throat stops him.

It’s clear soon enough that he needs Bucky there. He stands under the shower spray and finds that he can’t even lift his hands to scrub the filth off his skin. Bucky does, soapy hands roving over every inch of Steve, gentle and firm. His fingers sink into Steve’s matted hair, and Steve makes his first noise since the water turned on—a quiet, happy groan.

Bucky kisses his shoulder and quietly untangles his hair.

After, Steve’s warm and _clean_ , and Bucky’s drying him with a fluffy towel that smells like Bucky. He doesn’t even feel ridiculous when Bucky pulls him down into fresh sheets and waddles him in way too many blankets.

He’s there with Steve inside the nest of blankets, and Steve presses close, burying his face in Bucky’s neck and sinking his fingers into his skin. Bucky holds him back, firm but tender, like Steve’s something precious but also like he’s terrified Steve will be taken away.

“I’m here,” Steve manages to mumble, tongue heavy in his mouth.

Bucky lets out a shuddering breath.

“I know. Sleep, sweetheart.”

Steve’s terrified he’ll wake to his Brooklyn apartment with its empty walls and the bedsheets that haven’t been changed in a month. He tries to take awake, tries to keep his eyes open, but Bucky’s fingers feel so good on his scalp and the gentle rhythm of his breathing lulls him to sleep.

-

“What about Natasha?” Bucky asks a few hours after Tony’s funeral.

They’re in Steve’s place. With the Compound gone, and the Tower…not an option, they’ve all kind of scattered. Clint has his family, and he took the twins with him. Sam’s got his family too, and he and Steve spend a solid half an hour hugging and mumbling to each other between badly hidden tears, but Sam’s mother was also lost in the Decimation, and it was only respect for Tony’s sacrifice that Sam stayed so long. Thor is—well, no one quite knows where Thor is, and Steve can only hope he’s alright. Bruce and Scott are making some last-minute adjustments to the time machine.

And Steve’s preparing for one last mission.

Or at least he was before Bucky spoke her name, and Steve kind of just…froze. He shakes himself out of it, but by then, Bucky’s watching with soft, worried eyes. He does that a lot, and it makes Steve feel a peculiar blend of guilt and pleasure, because Bucky’s _here_ and he cares and there’s a gentleness to him that Steve is shocked to find that he desperately needs, but at the same time, he keeps thinking that Bucky’s the one who died and Steve should be the one taking care of _him_ —

“Steve,” Bucky says very gently.

Steve grimaces. But well, he’s not in very good position to take care of anyone at the moment. He remembers Bucky’s careful non-expression when he first saw Steve’s apartment—the unwashed plates and dusty curtains and—fuck, Bucky asked a question.

“What about her?” Steve manages.

“Did she have a funeral?”

“No.” Steve takes a deep breath in the hopes that the brittle edge to his voice will disappear. “No, we—there was no time. We had to assemble the gauntlet. And then, well. Thanos came.”

Bucky nods. There’s a sharpness to his expression, but it doesn’t seem to be directed at Steve, judging by the way everything about him turns softer when their eyes meet. Once, it would have rankled to be treated like this, but things change. Bucky seems to oddly appreciate that he can act this way with Steve.

“And now?” he asks.

Steve looks down at the open suitcase on the bed. The Infinity Stones gleam at him.

“Once I come back.”

That’s all he says.

Bucky’s silent for a long, tense moment.

“You know you don’t have to.”

He blurts it out, syllables all running together, and it’s only because Steve has been expecting this for over a day that he even catches what Bucky is saying.

“Yes,” he says, gentler than he would have if it were anyone else saying this. “I do.”

Bucky frowns. His mouth is a thin slash.

Steve shuts the case and reaches for Bucky, heart giving a painful thump when Bucky sways into his arms with a soft, happy sound, letting Steve kiss his temples and stroke his hair and just—just hold him.

“I have to do this,” Steve says. “One last mission.”

Bucky makes a pained noise.

“Buck?”

Bucky, face buried in Steve’s neck, shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing. Just—do me a favor, before you go? Do you—do you have time?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Anything.”

He means it. Bucky could tell him to fly halfway across the world for him, and Steve would, stones and everything else be damned until he does whatever Bucky asks of him.

Bucky leans back and gives Steve a look that says he knows the extent of what Steve would do, but it’s a wide-eyed, wounded look.

“Stay here a minute,” Bucky says, voice hoarse.

But he doesn’t leave, just rests his forehead on Steve’s shoulder and breathes in deep. Steve’s burning to ask but doesn’t, knowing when to hold his tongue. He strokes his hand up and down Bucky’s spine, trying his best to ease the tension tightening his frame.

“Okay,” Bucky says on a sharp exhale, pulling back. “Okay, I’ll—I’ll be back.”

He wrenches away from Steve with palpable reluctance and doesn’t quite meet his eyes when he strides out of the room. Steve watches him go, keenly missing the solid warmth of him in his arms. He has developed a mild case of separation anxiety in the last few days, and it’s only mild because he and Bucky haven’t had to be more than one room away from each other in that time.

He needs to return the stones, needs to—

He doesn’t want to leave Bucky, but he has to.

Bucky comes back holding a small tin of paint, of all things.

At Steve’s raised eyebrows, Bucky grins and turns pink. The tin is thrust under Steve’s nose without ceremony, and he grabs it out of sheer surprise. It’s white.

“Uh, Buck?”

“Paint it white.”

“Paint what—oh.”

Bucky’s got his index finger resting on the red star on his left bicep. He’s not looking at Steve, and his jaw is tight the way it gets when Bucky’s nervous and trying, badly, not to show it.

“Can I ask why?” Steve says, suddenly nervous himself.

“You know why.”

Bucky nearly bites out the words. Steve doesn’t quite know what to say. Bucky looks at him and whatever he sees on Steve’s face makes him huff and relax a little. He smiles, and it’s shaky at the edges but sweet too.

“I want your star on my arm. No matter what happens now, I—that’s what I want to wear on my sleeve.”

Steve’s chest tightens painfully. It’s the closest he’s got to an asthma attack since the serum.

“Is that okay?” Bucky asks quietly.

Steve doesn’t insult him by asking if he’s sure.

“I’d be honored, Buck.”

Bucky lets out a slow breath. He nods once.

“Alright. Okay, let’s—we don’t have much time.”

“We have enough,” Steve says firmly.

And they do. He’s careful as he fills the star with white paint. The red’s eaten up slowly, inch by inch, and there’s something filling Steve up too, an emotion that chokes him.

“It’ll need another coat,” Steve says when he’s done.

“Ah.”

“After. I’ll do it after.”

Bucky gives him an unreadable look. He smiles, and it’s a tragic little thing.

“I’ll be waiting.”

-

Steve’s never been a coward. He returns the space stone first.

He doesn’t strangle Zola and leave him to rot, though he wants to. And it would be easy to just—tap his GPS and leave, but he’s helpless not to retrace his path from the last time. It’s harder because there are people looking for a man with Steve’s build and coloring, but the first thing he did when he materialized in this reality was tug on a face mesh, grimacing at the faint prickle of it settling over his features, changing and masking them.

Peggy’s not in her office this time. Likely for the best.

The old Steve, thin as a reed and with a scowl as big as his face, stands in a picture frame next to the one of Peggy’s family. Steve sets the compass in front of the man he used to be.

Inside, there’s a folded paper with a set of coordinates.

Steve drags in a breath that burns all the way down. He’s gone before he can change his mind.

-

The power stone and the reality stone are returned without either incident or interference. He doesn’t have enough information and one awkward, stumbling conversation with Thor just got him a pained smile and a clap on the shoulder.

“You’re a good man, Steve Rogers,” he said, “and I thank you for your compassion towards my people.”

It wasn’t an answer to the question Steve asked, so he does as asked and returns the Aether into Jane Foster’s sleeping form, his conscience twinging. He leaves Mjolnir on the floor and pats her goodbye with a faint pang of regret. They had a short run, but god, it was something else.

It’s telling that the two stones he has to return to _outer space_ are the easiest to handle.

-

Strange’s predecessor takes one look at him and sighs. Steve has the strangest urge to apologize. She holds out her hand and Steve hands her the time stone, unsurprised when it happily flies into a compartment in her pendant. At this point, not a lot surprises him.

“I don’t know what your Strange was thinking,” she says, eyeing Steve in a way that makes him distinctly uncomfortable. “How big a mess do you intend to make, Steve Rogers?”

Steve shrugs and backs away with a prudence even he knows is uncharacteristic. Strange is, well, strange. This woman is terrifying, and she hasn’t even done anything to him.

Yet.

“As big a one as it takes,” Steve tells her, because wary or not, he’s still only himself.

She heaves another heavy sigh.

“Go, you’re giving me a headache. Do try not to make the multiverse collapse in on itself.”

With those ominous words ringing in his ears, Steve makes himself scarce.

It’s about as easy to sneak into the Tower as it was the first time. He finds his past self where he left him, his conscience giving another odd throb at the sight. He kneels beside him and very carefully retrieves the scepter. It took some time for them to figure out how to transport the tesseract and the scepter alongside the other stones, and not for the first time, it was Hank Pym’s technology that helped them.

The mini-scepter grows into its full size in Steve’s hand. He lays it carefully on the floor.

Then, he waits.

Other Steve’s eyes flutter open. Steve talks before he tries to pick up where they left off.

“I’m not Loki. Hydra’s not gone. Don’t trust Brock Rumlow or Alexander Pierce.”

Wide blue eyes glare at him, nothing like what he sees in a mirror. Steve almost leaves then because this is a Steve who’s got his own life to live, his own mistakes to make but he remembers, with piercing clarity, how lonely he was, how Bucky was the first to reach out in his own fucked up way, and the difference it made, the best and the worst.

“Don’t be afraid to love him,” he says, “even if he won’t let you. I promise it’s worth it.”

“What the—”

Steve activates the GPS before Other Steve can grab hold of him. He didn’t give the guy a lot to go on, but he thinks he gave him enough, just like with Peggy. Things ultimately worked out okay in his timeline, but they paid a steep price. Stands to reason they with some help, these other worlds will fare a little better. He hopes so.

And then it’s just the soul stone.

-

“Son of a _bitch_.”

The Red Skull stares placidly at him. He’s floating.

He’s going to kill Clint.

Well, he did warn Steve about the Guardian of the Soul Stone but not this bullshit. In his defense, he probably didn’t know, but Steve hasn’t been feeling very charitable towards Clint for some time.

There’s no recognition on the Red Skull’s face. Steve can see very little of Johann Schmidt in him. But the covetous glance he’s shooting the glowing orange stone in Steve’s grip is familiar.

It doesn’t matter anyway.

“I’m here to return the soul stone,” Steve says. “In exchange for Natasha.”

That earns Steve the dubious honor of direct eye contact. 

“There can be no exchange,” the Red Skull says. His voice has changed. It echoes eerily, stripped of all human cadence. “Soul for a soul. There must be balance.”

“Yeah, well, I’m here to restore the balance. Take the stone. Give Natasha back.”

“There can be no exchange.”

“Says who.”

“Says I, the Guardian of the—”

Steve punches him across a cliff. Whatever Schmidt has turned into, he is certainly very solid. It won’t keep him down for long, but Steve doesn’t intend to stick around much and anyway, he’s willing to punch that sneering red face as many times as he needs to.

He raises the soul stone to eye level. It seems to glow a little brighter.

“Hello,” he says, and if he looks ridiculous, who the fuck here is going to judge him. “I’d like an exchange, please.”

Something warm touches his mind.

There’s a moment of excruciating pain, then darkness.

-

Steve wakes up with water in his nose and lurches upright, coughing wetly. It takes him two seconds to realize there’s someone’s hand in his.

Natasha looks—

Asleep. Dead.

Steve puts trembling fingers to her pulse and damn near collapses when he finds it sluggishly beating.

“Nat,” he tries. “Nat, wake up.”

She stirs but doesn’t wake. Steve pulls her into his lap, the two of them still half-submerged. A quick look around shows that the jagged cliffs of earlier are nowhere to be seen. Neither is the Red Skull.

Good riddance.

“Nat,” Steve calls, stroking wet hair back from her face. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

Her eyelids flutter.

“Steve?”

-

He’ll never forget the expression on Bucky’s face when Steve stumbles off the platform, Natasha draped half-conscious against his side. It’s surprise and relief and a million things in between, but it’s not Natasha he’s looking at.

It’s Steve.

-

He puts the pieces together much later, when the two of them are back in Steve’s apartment. Natasha’s at the Barton farm. Steve doesn’t have words for the look Clint gave Steve after he saw her, but the memory still makes him uncomfortable.

Selfishly, he’s a little glad to finally be away from everyone. Except Bucky, but that’s different. The space gives him relief, lets him breathe, same as it does to have Bucky within reach.

It’s during dinner—sandwiches made with fresh produce that Steve definitely did not buy—that he brings it up.

“Did you think I wouldn’t come back?”

Bucky goes very still. Steve’s stare is drawn, not for the first time, to the white star on his arm. It needs another coat.

“I don’t know.”

It’s a faint whisper, so low that Steve wouldn’t have heard Bucky without his enhanced senses. Bucky’s still looking down at his nearly empty plate, conscientiously avoiding looking at Steve. He waits, keeping his hands to himself even though he wants to reach out for Bucky, cling to him and promise—promise everything.

Finally, Bucky lets out a harsh breath and looks up. He tries to smile, but it comes out lopsided and humorless.

“I don’t know what I thought. Just—it’s been five years. Everyone kept leaving you alone. I figured—no one would—I wouldn’t have blamed you. If you’d decided to stay.”

Bucky pauses, eyeing Steve with a wariness that spells out loud and clear that he’s expecting Steve to get angry or hurt. And maybe Steve would have, if there hadn’t been a moment when he considered it, the first time he stared at his picture on Peggy’s desk. But it was never a real possibility. Just a desperate mind latching onto any and every shard of hope. Steve knew better, has always known better.

Still, he understands why Bucky thought what he did. And he believes Bucky wouldn’t have blamed him; he also knows how it would have broken him.

Steve spent years living that reality.

“What would I have stayed for, Buck?” he asks very gently.

A shrug is his answer, Bucky’s whole frame taut with tension.

“Director Carter. Your friends. I don’t know.”

“Peggy had her life. She built a beautiful family for herself. She and I—we were wartime lovers. We never talked about a life after the war because there was a damn good chance one or both of us wouldn’t make it, and well, we weren’t wrong.”

Bucky winces at that, expression apologetic as he tries to smile at Steve. He does reach out this time, and Bucky meets him halfway, their hands gripping each other tight.

“I learned early on not to build a daydream out of what-ifs, Buck. I slip up sometimes, but it is what it is. I work with the cards I’ve been dealt.”

Bucky nods.

“I understand.”

“I wouldn’t have stayed even if there was anything left for me there.”

“What?” Bucky’s fingers tighten tellingly around Steve’s. “What does that mean?”

“I think you know,” Steve says, but he knows even without seeing Bucky’s pleading, uncertain expression that this is something he wants to have spelled out. Fair enough, with their history. “I have more waiting for me here, Buck. Nat, Sam, Wanda, Rhodey. You. I have you to come home to.”

Bucky blinks, eyes bright and wet, and doesn’t say a word.

And because Bucky’s not the only one wearing scars from their shared past, Steve asks, “Don’t I?”

This time, Bucky doesn’t manage to blink back tears.

“Of course you do,” he says, voice hoarse. “Why do you think I’m wearing your star on my arm?”

It’s not just relief that sweeps through Steve with all the force of a thunderstorm. It’s delight and a small spark of fear, because the future looms, murky and uncertain.

“About that—might not be my star for much longer.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. Steve leaves his seat and rounds the table to kneel beside Bucky, needing more closeness than hands held across a table can provide. He lays his cheek on Bucky’s thigh and sighs when fingers sink into his hair, massaging gently.

“You want to retire,” Bucky says, and it’s not a question.

“Yeah. I don’t plan to just—up and leave. The world’s reeling again. I want to help.”

“You don’t have to,” Bucky whispers, almost furious. “You’ve done enough. Christ, you’ve done _so much_.”

Steve laughs, muffling the sound against Bucky’s leg. Then, he rubs his face against one soft thigh, just because he can.

“Never been about what I had to do. You gotta admit I’m uniquely qualified to help people who’ve been displaced in time.” Bucky grumbles but doesn’t voice another protest, so Steve continues. “But I don’t have to be Cap for that. I just need to be me. And I’m—I’m done. I thought I was done after the Accords, but Thanos changed things. Now, well, I know a couple of people who can do some good with that title.”

Bucky doesn’t even hesitate.

“Sam?”

Steve raises his head, reluctant to leave the comfortable cushion of Bucky’s thigh but needing to look him in the eye.

“Yes. And you. I’m asking you both, and if you both want it, well—shield’s big enough for two sets of hands.”

A complicated set of emotions pass through Bucky’s face, a shifting blend of incredulity and pleasure, before it settles on an exasperated half-smile.

“I’m flattered,” he says, voice dry but the sentiment genuine. “But hell no.”

“Had a feeling you’d say that,” Steve admit. “But I had to ask.”

“I’d make a terrible Cap.”

“You’d be a better one than you think you’d be.”

“I’m a _disaster_.”

“My disaster,” Steve says promptly. He reaches up and cups Bucky’s face. “You’re not some big bad monster, Buck. You’re a good man.”

Bucky opens his mouth, protest etched into every line of his face, but Steve smiles gently and Bucky closes his mouth without uttering a single word. He blinks again and looks away, just for a second before he smiles down at Steve.

“Sam will say yes,” Bucky says. “He better. And he’ll make a damn good Cap.”

Steve huffs a laugh and doesn’t push it.

“He will,” he agrees. “I owe Shuri a favor now.”

“New shield?”

“New shield.”

Bucky whistles. Then he frowns.

“The star on me is still yours. Just making it clear.”

Steve doesn’t even try to hide how that makes him all warm and soft inside. He looks at Bucky with his heart in his eyes, on his sleeve, and doesn’t ask why Bucky chose to take that symbol without even knowing whether Steve would be back.

He understands.

“I’m yours too, Buck.”

He takes Bucky to bed after an evening of almost painful domesticity. The bland one-room apartment he’s been living in hasn’t felt like home in the five years he lived there, but after one week sharing it with Bucky, it’s got its own pulse. It’s not home, not yet, but it could be, just like the man inhabiting it.

He tells Bucky as much, whispers the words into the sensitive skin of his neck.

“I remember telling you I couldn’t be your home,” Bucky says, voice soft and wistful. “Feels like another lifetime.”

“It was,” Steve agrees, trailing his mouth up Bucky’s throat and pressing their lips chastely together. “Stay with me.”

“Already am.”

“Asking you forever.”

That’s not a promise Bucky can make with the lives they lead. Nothing lasts forever, and they’re got war in their blood. But that’s not what Steve’s asking, and Bucky’s expression is knowing.

“I will,” he says. “You have me, Steve.”

“Gonna keep you,” Steve says, that old stubbornness tinting his words, and Bucky breaks out into a bright, wild grin.

“Good. Show me then.”

Steve sinks his teeth into Bucky’s lip and laps at the hurt, a moment of comfort that he ruins by biting harder until blood hits his tongue. Bucky’s breathing turns harsh, but he doesn’t even whimper, and Steve can’t help hearing a challenge in that silence.

He sucks on Bucky’s lips until they’re red and raw and swollen, and then he licks inside, sharing the taste of Bucky’s blood with him. Bucky opens up like a dream, panting around Steve’s tongue and squirming under him, more to just move than to escape. Steve bears down on him with his weight and swallows Bucky’s little gasp.

When Steve draws back, Bucky blinks up at him with wide, dazed eyes. He’s pinned under Steve, caught and held, and his body’s loud in its approval. Steve traces the bright flush of Bucky’s cheek and throat and shifts so his thigh nudges up against the hard line of Bucky’s dick.

Bucky bites his lip and whines a little.

“You’re gorgeous,” Steve says, and the pink of Bucky’s skin flares into a violent red. “Aw, honey. You like hearing how pretty you are?”

Bucky shakes his head, but between his labored breathing and leaking cock, the denial is not very convincing.

“Liar,” Steve chides gently. “I don’t like it when you lie to me, Buck.”

Bucky, if possible, turns redder. And because he’s not Bucky fucking Barnes without some fire in him, he asks, “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Steve bites back a laugh and answers by catching Bucky’s nipple between two fingers and _twisting_ , hard enough that Bucky’s back arches off the bed. He digs his nail into the little nub, digging cruelly. Bucky whimpers, staring wide-eyed at Steve.

“I have an idea or two,” Steve tells him, gratified when Bucky just continues to stare dazedly.

He kisses Bucky’s pulse, tongue flicking out against the little flutter there. He’s less gentle with his teeth, tugging at skin and sucking hard, pulling back once Bucky’s throat is decorated with a latticework of bruises. He pinches a particularly livid one between thumb and forefinger, and the sound Bucky makes is shrill and uncontrolled. Steve does it again, pulling at the skin, and Bucky’s hands fly to his shoulders like he wants to push Steve away. But they don’t, they just cling and clutch, flesh and metal holding bruisingly tight.

Steve exhales shakily at the dull ache. His body is still getting used to being touched like this, to being touched by Bucky. It’s different for Bucky. He turned to dust and returned the same way, the five years between the two like some great sleep. He told Steve as much, kind enough not to make him ask.

Bucky’s hand slides over to touch Steve’s face, thumb rubbing gently at tears that slid down Steve’s cheek without him even being aware of it.

“Hey,” Bucky says, bruised and flushed, expression soft with understanding. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

“You are,” Steve murmurs, still in awe.

They kiss gently. He can taste broken skin on Bucky’s lips. The shape of his mouth is—and will always—be familiar.

“Sorry,” Steve says, lips puckering against the corner of Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky smacks his shoulder.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“Think I was born that way.”

Bucky makes a deeply offended noise and bites at Steve’s lips, huffing when he pulls back with a laugh.

“I’m just glad you’re here.”

“Not going anywhere,” Bucky says, smiling and sincere. He stretches under Steve, making a damn spectacle of himself and grinning when Steve drinks in the sight helplessly. “I’m right here. At your mercy. Whatever will you do with that?”

“Subtle,” Steve says, distracted by the clench of Bucky’s abs and his jutting cock. “Christ, you’re beautiful.”

Bucky swallows, throat clicking. When Steve drags his eyes back to his face, he finds Bucky wearing an expression that’s endearingly shy and goes right to Steve’s dick to make him feel like a right pervert.

He kisses Bucky again, has to, and mouth his way down the bruise-warm skin of his throat and then further below, setting sharp teeth to the nipple he tormented earlier. Bucky cries out at the pain, then moans when Steve laves his tongue over the little bud. Fingers wind into his hair and tighten. Steve loves how expressive Bucky is, his body doing the talking even when he bites his voice back.

Steve takes his sweet time with Bucky’s pecs, squeezing one in his hand while his mouth makes a red, swollen mess of the other. Bucky squirms through the whole thing, yanking at Steve’s hair and whimpering when he can’t hold the sounds in anymore.

When he finally lifts his face, licking his dry lips, Bucky’s got his left hand thrown across his face. His mouth is open and he’s got a violent flush all the way down his neck. Steve prods at his lip with his thumb, and Bucky closes his mouth around it without hesitation, lifting his arm to peer at Steve with his pupils blown wide.

“I missed your tits,” Steve tells him, possessive fervor tightening his gut when Bucky keens through the finger in his mouth. “I missed all of this.”

Bucky tries to open his mouth, but Steve slides his forefinger alongside his thumb, and Bucky sucks on them instinctively, eyes growing glazed.

“That’s good, Buck. You’re doing so good.” He takes his fingers away from Bucky’s mouth. “Ssh. Stay like that, just like that, hm?”

The body under him shudders.

Steve takes his wet fingers and circles the head of Bucky’s cock, not looking away from his face, hungry for his reactions. Bucky doesn’t disappoint. His eyes clench shut, and he bites down on his lip. Red beads on the dry, torn skin there.

Steve settles down firmly beside Bucky, flush to his side as he strokes his cock. He links his fingers with Bucky’s left hand, pinning it above his head. Bucky makes a hurt little noise, free hand fisted in the sheets, but he doesn’t move, just lied there, flushed and pretty, while Steve works him over with torturously slow strokes. He can feel the tension in Bucky’s frame, his muscles almost trembling with the effort it’s taking to lie still and not fuck up into Steve’s fist. Steve kisses his cheek, and when Bucky turns his head with a pitiful whine, he licks into his mouth and jerks him off a little faster.

For a few seconds, at least. Then, he returns to a glacial pace that gets Bucky shaking.

“You can come any time,” Steve says guilelessly, breaking the façade and grinning when Bucky tries to glare at him with wet, dark eyes. “Hey now, sweetheart. I’m being nice.”

Bucky’s expression says just how nice he thinks Steve’s being, but he wisely doesn’t say a word.

Steve turns his attention to Bucky’s cock. It’s a pretty thing, all long and flushed, so hard it looks painful. Eager, too, the head drenched in precome, slicking Steve’s palm with each downward swipe. He presses his thumb into the weeping slit and rubs, satisfaction warming his blood when Bucky lets out a quiet, broken noise.

The thing with Bucky is that he’s terrible at taking it slow.

He’s also, as Steve has had the honor of finding out, very, very sweet _after_ he gets worked over all good and slow.

Steve wants that tonight. He wants Bucky boneless in his bed, wants his head free of everything except how good it feels, wants him tethered to his body by nothing but pleasure.

And some pain because that’s who they are.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps. He’s breathing hard, and his cheeks are wet. “Steve, please.”

“I know, I know.” Steve kisses him again, and Bucky whimpers against his mouth. “Let go, Buck. I’ve got you.”

Bucky’s breath hitches. Steve keeps stroking him, fist tight around Bucky’s heated flesh. The muscles of his abdomen clenches and unclenches, and Steve’s close enough to register all the little movements Bucky can’t help, even though he’s staying still like Steve told him to.

“You’re being good,” Steve praises, smiling against Bucky’s cheek. “So good. Come on. It’s alright. You’ve earned it.”

Bucky throws his head to the side, away from Steve, chest heaving with loud, sobbing breaths. Steve tucks his face into the bared side of Bucky’s throat and nibbles at a patch of sweat-slick skin. Bucky’s familiar taste floods his mouth and makes his chest ache.

“Come for me, Buck. Let me feel it.”

Bucky gasps Steve’s name like a curse and a blessing all in one. His body goes painfully tense, and then he’s coming, cock pulsing in Steve’s grip, wetting his fist with warm streaks of come. Bucky keens through it, shaking as his body loses its tension, and the sound turns into broken whimpering when Steve continues to stroke his cock, spreading his own release across the softening length of it.

“Please,” Bucky whines, dragging in deep, shuddering breaths.

“Ssh,” Steve kisses him, close-lipped and gentle. “You did well, Buck. So good for me.”

Bucky turns his whole body towards Steve, squirming into him with soft, sniffling noises. Steve doesn’t take his hand off Bucky’s cock, oddly reluctant to release it from his grip, but he stops stroking, instead curving his palm protectively over the small, soft flesh.

He nuzzles into Bucky’s temple, kissing his hair and burying his face in the short, fluffy strands.

His own cock throbs between his legs, demanding attention. Steve ignores it for a few more seconds, rubbing his cheek against Bucky’s hair and breathing in the mingled scent of shampoo and skin.

He draws back, sated, and smiles down at Bucky’s limp form. He’s awake, lips puckering every few seconds against whatever part of Steve he can reach, but he’s as sweet as Steve thought he would be, curled up against Steve and leaving butterfly kisses on his throat. He starts a little when Steve mournfully lets go of his dick and takes Bucky’s hand instead, smearing come on him too.

Bucky blinks up at him with eyes that are almost entirely black. There’s a smile on his face, wide and unguarded.

“Hey,” Steve says, almost choking on the emotion that wells up within him. “You want to help me out, sweetheart?”

Bucky nods, smile widening. Steve kisses him, once, twice, then again and again and again, addicted to the gentle curve of Bucky’s mouth. He leads Bucky’s hand to his cock, groaning quietly when his fingers wrap around it instinctively. Bucky tries to start stroking, but Steve covers his hand with his own, his longer fingers enveloping Bucky’s.

Bucky lets out a faint _oh_. Steve kisses his forehead.

He starts stroking, moving both their hands along their lengths, and it’s Bucky’s calloused skin on his cock but Steve’s the one setting the pace, and there’s something about it, holding Bucky’s hand and making it move and taking pleasure from it, that goes right to Steve’s head and gets him dizzy. Bucky’s not unaffected. His grip tightens on Steve, and the rest of him body arches closer to him like he wants to sink through Steve’s skin and burrow into his soul.

“Kiss me,” Steve groans, already close, everything he suppressed while he wound Bucky up surging to the surface.

Bucky kisses the sounds of his lips, and they breathe open-mouthed together. Steve starts to fuck into their joined hands, and Bucky moans like he’s getting fucked.

Steve doesn’t last long, but his climax hits him like a freight train. He cries into Bucky’s mouth and shudders through each, gut-wrenching pulse of his orgasm, body thrumming with more pleasure than it can hold. Bucky pets him with his free hand, metal fingers gentle in Steve’s hair and on his back.

Afterwards, he makes a valiant attempt of his own to crawl into Bucky’s skin, and if Bucky minds being crushed against a mountain of needy muscle, he doesn’t complain. He clings back, with a limpness to his limbs that says he’s still half fucked out, and that just makes Steve hold him tighter, possessive and pleased.

-

“I love you,” he says some time later, once he’s managed to pry his body out of bed—and more importantly, away from Bucky—and clean them both up.

Bucky, held in Steve’s arms, his back to Steve’s chest, makes a happy noise.

“Love you too.” Then, he turns his head and says, “I’m a little scared. The world keeps going to hell whenever we say that.”

It’s testament to how deeply fucked the last few years have been that Steve gives that serious consideration for a few seconds.

“But we keep coming back to each other,” he says in the end. “That’s what matters.”

Bucky’s expression softens. There’s adoration in the curve of his mouth and crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

The man Steve was a decade ago wouldn’t believe this. But at the very least, Steve can say with no small amount of confidence that even that man wouldn’t say everything that happened in those years was too steep a price to pay. He was gone on Bucky from the first fistfight, and Steve’s never known how to love without letting it rage like a wildfire.

Bucky settles back in his arms. Steve kisses the nape of his neck.

“What now?” Bucky asks. “Where do we go?”

“I don’t know. Never been retired before.”

Bucky laughs tiredly. He’ll fall asleep soon, and Steve will follow, and he’ll probably wake with dreams of sinking fingers into dust, but Bucky will be here to press his warm, living flesh to Steve’s and remind him they’re here, they’re alive.

“I’ve tried that before,” Bucky says. “Didn’t stick but—wouldn’t mind trying again.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’ve earned a happy ending, Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [collab: voxofthevoid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23361448) by [kocuria-visuals (kocuria)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kocuria/pseuds/kocuria-visuals)




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